The present invention relates to a long, narrow strip material handling apparatus.
Various long and narrow strip material handling apparatus are well known to those skilled, for example, in the photographic art. A photographic printing-processing apparatus with a long strip handling apparatus generally has various chambers or sections, such as a paper developing section, a paper drying section and a paper cutting section. A long strip of material such as color paper, is withdrawn from a paper magazine to an exposure station in the exposure section for exposure. After exposure, the long strip of color paper is transported to the reservoir section by a paper transporting roller assembly comprising a driving roller and driven or pinch rollers through a paper guide member disposed between the first paper transporting roller assembly and the reservoir section. Then, the long strip of color paper is transported by a second paper transporting roller assembly, comprising driving and driven or pinch rollers, toward the paper cutting section, passing first through the developing section and the drying section. In the paper cutting section, the processed long strip of color paper is cut into individual prints.
In such a printing-processing apparatus, the long strip of color paper generally is transported at different speeds for printing and processing because more time is required in the developing section than in the printing section. For smooth transfer of the long strip of color paper from the printing section to the processing section and, in addition, for efficient print making, the paper reservoir section necessarily is provided between the printing and processing sections for looping and temporarily reserving the printed color paper in the form of a loop.
The long strip of color paper thus temporarily reserved in the reservoir section is transported into the processing section by the second paper transporting roller assembly at a speed slower than that of the first paper transporting roller assembly. To nip the leading end of the long strip of color paper securely between the driving and pinch roller of the the the second paper transporting roller assembly, a movable guide member is provided between the first and second paper transporting roller assemblies. The movable guide member is displaced away from the path of the long strip of color paper to enable the color paper to be looped.
A serious problem with such a long strip material handling apparatus is that because of the difference in speed of the first and second paper transporting roller assemblies, the second paper transporting roller assembly fails to up the long strip of color paper. Alternatively, there may be jamming.